As one who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused
Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes.
Thus thou hast seen one world begin, and end;
And Man, as from a second stock, proceed.
Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive
Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine
Must needs impair and weary human sense:
Henceforth what is to come I will relate;
Thou therefore give due audience, and attend.
This second source of Men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgement past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
With some regard to what is just and right
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace;
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,
Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock,
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,
With large wine-offerings poured, and sacred feast,
Shall spend their days in joy unblamed; and dwell
Long time in peace, by families and tribes,
Under paternal rule: till one shall rise
Of proud ambitious heart; who, not content
With fair equality, fraternal state,
Will arrogate dominion undeserved
Over his brethren, and quite dispossess
Concord and law of nature from the earth;
Hunting (and men not beasts shall be his game)
With war, and hostile snare, such as refuse
Subjection to his empire tyrannous:
A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled
Before the Lord; as in despite of Heaven,
Or from Heaven, claiming second sovranty;
And from rebellion shall derive his name,
Though of rebellion others he accuse.
He with a crew, whom like ambition joins
With him or under him to tyrannize,
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boils out from under ground, the mouth of Hell:
Of brick, and of that stuff, they cast to build
A city and tower, whose top may reach to Heaven;
And get themselves a name; lest, far dispersed
In foreign lands, their memory be lost;
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tower
Obstruct Heaven-towers, and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit, to rase
Quite out their native language; and, instead,
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown:
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud,
Among the builders; each to other calls
Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage,
As mocked they storm: great laughter was in Heaven,
And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din:  Thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased.
O execrable son! so to aspire
Above his brethren; to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given:
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.
But this usurper his encroachment proud
Stays not on Man; to God his tower intends
Siege and defiance:  Wretched man!what food
Will he convey up thither, to sustain
Himself and his rash army; where thin air
Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross,
And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
To whom thus Michael.  Justly thou abhorrest
That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty; yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires,
And upstart passions, catch the government
From reason; and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free.  Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgement just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom:  Tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice, and some fatal curse annexed,
Deprives them of their outward liberty;
Their inward lost:  Witness the irreverent son
Of him who built the ark; who, for the shame
Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
Servant of servants, on his vicious race.
Thus will this latter, as the former world,
Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last,
Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw
His presence from among them, and avert
His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth
To leave them to their own polluted ways;
And one peculiar nation to select
From all the rest, of whom to be invoked,
A nation from one faithful man to spring:
Him on this side Euphrates yet residing,
Bred up in idol-worship:  O, that men
(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown,
While yet the patriarch lived, who ’scaped the flood,
As to forsake the living God, and fall
To worship their own work in wood and stone
For Gods!  Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
To call by vision, from his father’s house,
His kindred, and false Gods, into a land
Which he will show him; and from him will raise
A mighty nation; and upon him shower
His benediction so, that in his seed
All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys;
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes:
I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldaea, passing now the ford
To Haran; after him a cumbrous train
Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude;
Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who called him, in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents
Pitched about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain
Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land,
From Hameth northward to the Desart south;
(Things by their names I call, though yet unnamed;)
From Hermon east to the great western Sea;
Mount Hermon, yonder sea; each place behold
In prospect, as I point them; on the shore
Mount Carmel; here, the double-founted stream,
Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons
Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills.
This ponder, that all nations of the earth
Shall in his seed be blessed:  By that seed
Is meant thy great Deliverer, who shall bruise
The Serpent’s head; whereof to thee anon
Plainlier shall be revealed.  This patriarch blest,
Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call,
A son, and of his son a grand-child, leaves;
Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown:
The grandchild, with twelve sons increased, departs
From Canaan to a land hereafter called
Egypt, divided by the river Nile
See where it flows, disgorging at seven mouths
Into the sea. To sojourn in that land
He comes, invited by a younger son
In time of dearth, a son whose worthy deeds
Raise him to be the second in that realm
Of Pharaoh. There he dies, and leaves his race
Growing into a nation, and now grown
Suspected to a sequent king, who seeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them slaves
Inhospitably, and kills their infant males:
Till by two brethren (these two brethren call
Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim
His people from enthralment, they return,
With glory and spoil, back to their promised land.
But first, the lawless tyrant, who denies
To know their God, or message to regard,
Must be compelled by signs and judgements dire;
To blood unshed the rivers must be turned;
Frogs, lice, and flies, must all his palace fill
With loathed intrusion, and fill all the land;
His cattle must of rot and murren die;
Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss,
And all his people; thunder mixed with hail,
Hail mixed with fire, must rend the Egyptians sky,
And wheel on the earth, devouring where it rolls;
What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain,
A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down
Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green;
Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,
Palpable darkness, and blot out three days;
Last, with one midnight stroke, all the first-born
Of Egypt must lie dead.  Thus with ten wounds
The river-dragon tamed at length submits
To let his sojourners depart, and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice
More hardened after thaw; till, in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismissed, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass,
As on dry land, between two crystal walls;
Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand
Divided, till his rescued gain their shore:
Such wondrous power God to his saint will lend,
Though present in his Angel; who shall go
Before them in a cloud, and pillar of fire;
By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire;
To guide them in their journey, and remove
Behind them, while the obdurate king pursues:
All night he will pursue; but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch;
Then through the fiery pillar, and the cloud,
God looking forth will trouble all his host,
And craze their chariot-wheels: when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;
On their embattled ranks the waves return,
And overwhelm their war:  The race elect
Safe toward Canaan from the shore advance
Through the wild Desart, not the readiest way;
Lest, entering on the Canaanite alarmed,
War terrify them inexpert, and fear
Return them back to Egypt, choosing rather
Inglorious life with servitude; for life
To noble and ignoble is more sweet
Untrained in arms, where rashness leads not on.
This also shall they gain by their delay
In the wide wilderness; there they shall found
Their government, and their great senate choose
Through the twelve tribes, to rule by laws ordained:
God from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets’ sound,
Ordain them laws; part, such as appertain
To civil justice; part, religious rites
Of sacrifice; informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destined Seed to bruise
The Serpent, by what means he shall achieve
Mankind’s deliverance.  But the voice of God
To mortal ear is dreadful:  They beseech
That Moses might report to them his will,
And terrour cease; he grants what they besought,
Instructed that to God is no access
Without Mediator, whose high office now
Moses in figure bears; to introduce
One greater, of whose day he shall foretel,
And all the Prophets in their age the times
Of great Messiah shall sing.  Thus, laws and rites
Established, such delight hath God in Men
Obedient to his will, that he vouchsafes
Among them to set up his tabernacle;
The Holy One with mortal Men to dwell:
By his prescript a sanctuary is framed
Of cedar, overlaid with gold; therein
An ark, and in the ark his testimony,
The records of his covenant; over these
A mercy-seat of gold, between the wings
Of two bright Cherubim; before him burn
Seven lamps as in a zodiack representing
The heavenly fires; over the tent a cloud
Shall rest by day, a fiery gleam by night;
Save when they journey, and at length they come,
Conducted by his Angel, to the land
Promised to Abraham and his seed:—The rest
Were long to tell; how many battles fought
How many kings destroyed; and kingdoms won;
Or how the sun shall in mid Heaven stand still
A day entire, and night’s due course adjourn,
Man’s voice commanding, ‘Sun, in Gibeon stand,
‘And thou moon in the vale of Aialon,
’Till Israel overcome! so call the third
From Abraham, son of Isaac; and from him
His whole descent, who thus shall Canaan win.
Here Adam interposed.  O sent from Heaven,
Enlightener of my darkness, gracious things
Thou hast revealed; those chiefly, which concern
Just Abraham and his seed: now first I find
Mine eyes true-opening, and my heart much eased;
Erewhile perplexed with thoughts, what would become
Of me and all mankind:  But now I see
His day, in whom all nations shall be blest;
Favour unmerited by me, who sought
Forbidden knowledge by forbidden means.
This yet I apprehend not, why to those
Among whom God will deign to dwell on earth
So many and so various laws are given;
So many laws argue so many sins
Among them; how can God with such reside?
To whom thus Michael.  Doubt not but that sin
Will reign among them, as of thee begot;
And therefore was law given them, to evince
Their natural pravity, by stirring up
Sin against law to fight: that when they see
Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak,
The blood of bulls and goats, they may conclude
Some blood more precious must be paid for Man;
Just for unjust; that, in such righteousness
To them by faith imputed, they may find
Justification towards God, and peace
Of conscience; which the law by ceremonies
Cannot appease; nor Man the mortal part
Perform; and, not performing, cannot live.
So law appears imperfect; and but given
With purpose to resign them, in full time,
Up to a better covenant; disciplined
From shadowy types to truth; from flesh to spirit;
From imposition of strict laws to free
Acceptance of large grace; from servile fear
To filial; works of law to works of faith.
And therefore shall not Moses, though of God
Highly beloved, being but the minister
Of law, his people into Canaan lead;
But Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call,
His name and office bearing, who shall quell
The adversary-Serpent, and bring back
Through the world’s wilderness long-wandered Man
Safe to eternal Paradise of rest.
Mean while they, in their earthly Canaan placed,
Long time shall dwell and prosper, but when sins
National interrupt their publick peace,
Provoking God to raise them enemies;
From whom as oft he saves them penitent
By Judges first, then under Kings; of whom
The second, both for piety renowned
And puissant deeds, a promise shall receive
Irrevocable, that his regal throne
For ever shall endure; the like shall sing
All Prophecy, that of the royal stock
Of David (so I name this king) shall rise
A Son, the Woman’s seed to thee foretold,
Foretold to Abraham, as in whom shall trust
All nations; and to kings foretold, of kings
The last; for of his reign shall be no end.
But first, a long succession must ensue;
And his next son, for wealth and wisdom famed,
The clouded ark of God, till then in tents
Wandering, shall in a glorious temple enshrine.
Such follow him, as shall be registered
Part good, part bad; of bad the longer scroll;
Whose foul idolatries, and other faults
Heaped to the popular sum, will so incense
God, as to leave them, and expose their land,
Their city, his temple, and his holy ark,
With all his sacred things, a scorn and prey
To that proud city, whose high walls thou sawest
Left in confusion; Babylon thence called.
There in captivity he lets them dwell
The space of seventy years; then brings them back,
Remembering mercy, and his covenant sworn
To David, stablished as the days of Heaven.
Returned from Babylon by leave of kings
Their lords, whom God disposed, the house of God
They first re-edify; and for a while
In mean estate live moderate; till, grown
In wealth and multitude, factious they grow;
But first among the priests dissention springs,
Men who attend the altar, and should most
Endeavour peace: their strife pollution brings
Upon the temple itself: at last they seise
The scepter, and regard not David’s sons;
Then lose it to a stranger, that the true
Anointed King Messiah might be born
Barred of his right; yet at his birth a star,
Unseen before in Heaven, proclaims him come;
And guides the eastern sages, who inquire
His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold:
His place of birth a solemn Angel tells
To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night;
They gladly thither haste, and by a quire
Of squadroned Angels hear his carol sung.
A ****** is his mother, but his sire
The power of the Most High:  He shall ascend
The throne hereditary, and bound his reign
With Earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the Heavens.
He ceased, discerning Adam with such joy
Surcharged, as had like grief been dewed in tears,
Without the vent of words; which these he breathed.
O prophet of glad tidings, finisher
Of utmost hope! now clear I understand
What oft my steadiest thoughts have searched in vain;
Why o

In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned  in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy,
then in their height.


Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
         Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!
         For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;
Tempered to the oaten flute,
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.
         But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear.
         Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
RHad ye been there,S . . . for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
         Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. RBut not the praise,”
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
RFame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.”
         O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood.
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea,
That came in Neptune’s plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory.
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
         Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, Rmy dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain.
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:—
RHow well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as, for their bellies’ sake,
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped:
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
         Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf **** the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the ***** freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise,
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled;
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
         Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That Sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
         Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey:
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

I am twisting these
Words simply because of the intricacy
that can be held by muttering together letter after letter
The language formed
The communication
I was going to ask if you remembered that time, but I know better
You know
You remember
When the winds were blowing hard
And we were to go our separate ways
And there I was pounding my fists within my chest
Wailing out
How badly did the desire stained liquid quench feeling of lust want to escape
Built up inside of me
Dying to break out
To be fed
You knew it
You knew I loved you
You stood there
Waiting patiently
gallantly
No you wouldn’t interpose anything
And the little fists within me would keep beating and pounding too afraid to break the rhythm they had formed
You stood tall
It was winter I think
Or perhaps late fall
Definitely not early spring though
Because I know too well
The scent of spring
And the feeling
And the time didn’t match with that
Your eyes glimmered
Secrets within
I so smitten
So afraid to interpose upon you
So afraid
To stand tall
Not wanting to burst our friendship
With anything more
But the desire had become too much
Insatiable with a simple hug or smile
You stood there
Only waiting
Yet I didn’t know it then
And after the years
When it all clicked in
I remember your gallant way of standing
And even now
Sometimes you smile at me
You smile at the deeper root within me
You see the grounding connection between us
You feel it too
But you see my weaknesses
And without doubt
My fears as well
I wish I could show you my strength
Although I know you know
It exists
And rather mundane now
For the time for these thoughts has passed
And now they are just meaningless specks
On the image
Of our youth
And I know you know that I feel I have to prove it
And I know you know I know you know
That it is unnecessary
Sorry for my hesitancy
But that time of year has come again
The rain
The wind
The dividing factors
Pulling away at my skin
At my scarf
And I can ever so clearly remember the prudence
The day
And I realized
Perhaps
For just once
So I can fill my gut
With the fulfillment
That you know
How deep I go
So...
Please,
Don’t smile, I love you

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
     Hesperus entreats thy light,
     Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wishèd sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

XXXI

Thou comest! all is said without a word.
I sit beneath thy looks, as children do
In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through
Their happy eyelids from an unaverred
Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred
In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue
The sin most, but the occasion—that we two
Should for a moment stand unministered
By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,
Thou dovelike help! and, when my fears would rise,
With thy broad heart serenely interpose:
Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies
These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,
Like callow birds left desert to the skies.

Past and future daydreams
the delusions of
a present tense.

Unspeakable longing
fills every fissure
and pressure demands
the yielding of limits.

            (a dark torrent bursts forth)

      the shores will recede
      until the island is
      swallowed up by the sea

No survivors remain
when the tide, stemmed
for sakes external,
recapitulates the beachhead.

A great ache fills the land
with anguish, beckons
all beginnings to unite
with the end

      {the memory will fade
      to total silence
      beneath the roar of the waves}

Where wilderness waits
to interpose the tamed.

**

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world,
Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,
The loved, the good--that breath'st upon the lights
Of virtue set along the vale of life,
And they go out in darkness. I am come,
Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers,
Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear
From the beginning. I am come to speak
Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept
Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again:
And thou from some I love wilt take a life
Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell
Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee
In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,
Meet is it that my voice should utter forth

Thy nobler triumphs: I will teach the world
To thank thee.--Who are thine accusers?--Who?
The living!--they who never felt thy power,
And know thee not. The curses of the wretch
Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand
Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,
Are writ among thy praises. But the good--
Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace,
Upbraid the gentle violence that took off
His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell?
Raise then the Hymn to Death. Deliverer!
God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed
And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,
The conqueror of nations, walks the world,
And it is changed beneath his feet, and all
Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm--
Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart
Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand
Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp,
And the strong links of that tremendous chain
That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break
Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.
Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes
Gather within their ancient bounds again.
Else had the mighty of the olden time,
******, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned
His birth from Lybian Ammon, smote even now
The nations with a rod of iron, and driven
Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge,
In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know

No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose
Only to lay the sufferer asleep,
Where he who made him wretched troubles not
His rest--thou dost strike down his tyrant too.
Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge
Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold.
Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible
And old idolatries; from the proud fanes
Each to his grave their priests go out, till none
Is left to teach their worship; then the fires
Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss
O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images
Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns,
Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds
Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he
Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all
The laws that God or man has made, and round
Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,--
Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven,
And celebrates his shame in open day,
Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off
The horrible example. Touched by thine,
The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold
Wrong from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer,
Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble
Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed
And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame
Blasted before his own foul calumnies,
Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold
His conscience to preserve a worthless life,

Even while he hugs himself on his escape,
Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,
Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time
For parley--nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.
Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long
Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,
Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,
And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life
Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,
And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,
And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand
Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,
And he is warned, and fears to step aside.
Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime
Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand
Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully
Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts
Drink up the ebbing spirit--then the hard
Of heart and violent of hand restores
The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.
Then from the writhing ***** thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,
Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon's latest breath
Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;
The slanderer, horror smitten, and in tears,
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged
To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make
Thy penitent victim utter to the air
The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,

And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour
Is come, and the dread sign of ****** given.
Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found
On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee,
Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth
Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile
For ages, while each passing year had brought
Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world
With their abominations; while its tribes,
Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled,
Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice
Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs
Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn:
But thou, the great reformer of the world,
Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud
In their green pupilage, their lore half learned--
Ere guilt has quite o'errun the simple heart
God gave them at their birth, and blotted out
His image. Thou dost mark them, flushed with hope,
As on the threshold of their vast designs
Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down.

Alas, I little thought that the stern power
Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus
Before the strain was ended. It must cease--
For he is in his grave who taught my youth
The art of verse, and in the bud of life
Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off
Untimely! when thy reason in its strength,
Ripened by years of toil and studious search

And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught
Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days.
And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth
Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes
And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill
Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale
When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou
Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have
To offer at thy grave--this--and the hope
To copy thy example, and to leave
A name of which the wretched shall not think
As of an enemy's, whom they forgive
As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou
Whose early guidance trained my infant steps--
Rest, in the ***** of God, till the brief sleep
Of death is over, and a happier life
Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.
Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt
Has wearied Heaven for vengeance--he who bears
False witness--he who takes the orphan's bread,
And robs the widow--he who spreads abroad
Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,
Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look
On what is written, yet I blot not out
The desultory numbers--let them stand.
The record of an idle revery.

XVII

Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son,
Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help wast a sullen day; what may be Won
From the hard Season gaining: time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth; and cloth in fresh attire
The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow’d nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise
To hear the Lute well toucht, or artfull voice
Warble immortal Notes and Tuskan Ayre?
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

Having arrived at Patmos, on the southeastern ***** of Skalá, Wonthelimar observed that the Seleucid ships were there. Already knowing of the myth of Seleucus and of his Divinity, since her mother Laodice, according to Vernarth's parapsychology parallel account, and aligned with Wonthelimar, that she had presumed that her son Seleucus had been conceived by carnal union with Apollo. These oracular dreams separated them from Vernarth, for a certain Antigone of the imperial Seleucid with the anchor of the ring that Apollo had captivated from the gematological extract, now wading in the quantum of Chauvet, which had been identified from Gaul.

Wonthelimar says: “from such a thigh such as a Vas Auric you will be anchored at your anchor, in a proud fallacy if you have been engendered by Apollo if it is that your mother temporizes in a hallway idyll or Antigone, and not of someone wearing a ring that smells like broken neo-Hellenic dreams in one that anyone believed, born of one being or another like me from a mythological Iberian, but being carried from a very young age on the haunches of a Bucephalus. Here I believe where Laodice would be or would be caught by knowing that creatures like me, spawned in the darkness of a cave, should wear that ring, but in the seventh ring of the horns of my paternal Ibez with its antlers constantly growing, and in my forehead having one of them in the antlers of the female that fed me in the reign of darkness and in the heights of the mountains. Upon leaving Chauvet I embraced her suspended antlers, and when I separated from the sixth ring, my female nurse with her pale neck offered me the seventh so that I would do it with brown illusions to be like her in the maternal ***** of the Rhone that in altitudes Thousands leveled out over seven hundred meters, with each ring being the power of a reign of darkness filled with light and undeserved talent. In the autumn, my female mother would get involved when I timidly approached from my cavern full of aldehyde, eliminating it through my mouth and eyes, creating from them the brave fear of misunderstood symbols..., if you saw it, your Seleucus...? You would abandon your divinity with a single breeze of the elements when you would recover your anchor rings on the roads. On the other hand, I wake up in his ring because of the meager light that intimidates the converted mountain beings, who interpose me in their combats, if an antler was or is torn from one of my attempts of frustration, after not seeing what it is not noticed even in thousands of distant blushes, and not even in the emission of the eyes of a hypothetical Apollo "

Behind the philastic zoomorphic of the exalting from Seleuco's mouth, the bilocated Epidaurus on Patmos was lowered by the steps of an amphitheater, bossed around in the conclusive closing of his story behind bars or horns that splintered his revoked mention of aspiring to a ring, which is not and will be nothing more than a synonym of despair, more than an immortal that is now abbreviated from the stigma of co-founding itself in meaning as a temporary truth of Hellenism, deducing to qualify its origin as a plus part and ascendant servant, but not descendant in shirts that have to transvestite him on the Epidaurus proscenium. Seleucus began to doubt his converted eagerness to lash out the mythological divine lineage for a sanction, in which the lightning bolts of the stunning sky themselves demystified their annoying gales of submission, by dynasties of the proverbial Kleos for the purposes of fame, and politics that open the loaded winds with cots of gold to marry with diligent nebulosity in transliterated and linked tripods in cumulus universes, where the first two abuse the fulcrum of the obverse that falls by gravity on no man's land..., here is the myth of anchoring and not of to aspire to a ring or earring that will drag us to heights where the icy cold wind crowns you on legs of bronze and not of gold "

These coins were carefully observed by those who observed them from a gorge, capturing the humility and infallibility of a being that came from the entrails of Chauvet, interpreting courses that awaited Seleucus. The appendages were detached from the koilones and tiers that jumped over it, to press and narrow the diazomas or corridors that were already deployed like a laser in the cubations of the consciousness of Megarón and the Vas Auric of the Hexagonal Primogeniture, which already was made ubiquitous. It was released from an Alexandrian Greek fire on the jaws of the hecatomb of the ex-generals of Alexander the Great. Here in funeral periphrasis, few prostitutes rusted behind his inheritance, each with their bronze panoplies and banners in favor of Leonatus in the hands of the Satrap Antigonus, Ptolemy, and the most outstanding applicant of his divine inheritance, Seleucus. They all meet outside the Eurydice ship in Skalá to settle decisions and franchises of ancestry, for the purpose of divinizing the destinies of their tasks and interests, to sink them into the first stone under a base of faith, and of those who will come from the return of the Anastásis like Greek resurrection of bread and wine, Psomí kai krasí…; "The Mashiach for being of whoever and whatever"

Seleuco says: "Psomí kai krasí, Bread and Wine for all." We have revived our leader, who in good time should resurrect us all for his mentions of the new future of fallen leaders and heroes. We are not oblivious to your expiration and perhaps your negligence in Babylon, but the steps of a king require other Seleucid measures and their oriental legitimating, being oligarchies that should morally do what is known. Antigonus, Ptolemy, and I appear here with me, preserving periods that leave us of mediumistic notions of the grim, who does not allow us to close our eyes. We confer the denounced ambiguity of previous riches that do not fit in any silo that can contain it, nor what happens to the secondary after diving early in the morning mounted on your Bucephalus, full of its manes swollen with the posterity of a Roman emperor besieging it, without advancing by requirements or where he rides now in steel wastelands, and not through upholstered steppes of the cautious ensign on your guard and in the solemn light of life that the **** leaves behind in your symbolic sarcophagus! We want you to join us, and to be able to banish our distinctions from where Apollo has given his eternal sleeper in the sense of an ephemeral truth, which makes light of flesh colors in the fiery figure of your coat of arms.
We have stolen the traced areas of Judea and from there Maccabees have donated us inscriptions back to my threat to you and Antigonus,... to my enemy debtor, but even so, I come to repair unevenness and want to repair idylls more remote from the Euphrates to settle in the ranks of Ptolemy. We have all sinned to look for you in our slogans, gaining fleeting territory, but we have lost your lux, already well said in my sanctuary in Didyma, but in seconds that continue from the first, already raising flags and heralds that increase your vox, more than a David that defeats a colossus; that from his own death resurrects...! "

All perceptibly dismayed looked at Alexander the Great who was behind a canopy listening to everything with his ear attached to the canvas that separates him from a presumed truth. He draws the curtain and pounces before everyone with stealth and courtesy, incontinenti he speaks to them after inhuman efforts to move away from the stagnant sub-understanding of his former commander.

Alexander the Great says: “The aureoles of sanctity have dislocated my Beelzebub, and the brambles brush against the Scabious flowers like widows that sing in the cenotic lines of my hands from a purgative cathartic in its graceful subfamily that makes my eyes heterochromatic de facto, between the thistles that are spiced between the aromatherapy of the Scabiosa cretica. In their oblong shape with pincushion flowers, they make the basting their nailed pins waiting to be used so that my desolations are not lost even after being just reborn. After the annual Attic calendar in Elaphebolion where they walked on me to resist the deer of Artemis, in attempts to get up and ***** me in the sessile voices of Scabiosa dispelled by Vernarth that have raised me in the involved species, like a chalice of unstitched shreds in seven holes, leaning back to the Aquenio in his fruit tree that is stained with lavender-blue, and the Lepidoptera bringing Vernarth from Gethsemane and the anti-Sarnic clothing that makes him exalted. Now from here, I harangue you, like immaterial troops that do not move their courage, with enemies that are left open to the fear of my walk on them, on rams of the imminent danger of warbling victory with steely Falangists. What a nationalist Faskéloma attribute as obscene fuss and Pashkien that reorders the armies that invade its headless stadiums, in raised nightingales that chirped the sadness of seeing myself fallen on the nose of the common soldiers and full of scabies in Arbela. I have to fly with you my lost flocks ready of Apollo surrendering twilight fire, and of moon-sun between the legs of a colossus forged by greater fires, speaking to me of Macedonian triumph, under the yoke of the crackle of a people that lies taciturn with the satraps in Hercules's cunning conquering in the cheers only after three laps they made debits from my left, while I saw the light of Uriel coming towards me in the Lepidoptera with his sheathing, and entirely of a horse placed Beelzebub, to transmigrate him with me from Cinnabar chains and honor what serves the world also that dies with me in Thrace or Alexandria Bucephalus, after the south of Corinth, regardless of me, who already sensed that he was anti-diadoco..., being at that time a leader of the Sacred League of Delphic Amphibian, after feeling so much pain immediately from dying..., I still had life left in the Scabiosa flask and in bronze vessels that I removed from the swirling wind of the s Thermopylae, leaving me stranded with nothing but chimeras of winning the world, but losing a Life that had just begun "

Meanwhile, at the dawn of Vas Auric was projected at relative height, Syrmus's light and resounding fall were shown when he attacked the back of Macedonia -... here Alexander makes a gesture of modest resilient power... -, after he glimpsed to Saint John the Apostle how he moved with his staff the tricolor clouds transmitted by the troops of the Tribalios and that was crushed by the carnal battery of Macedonian cavalry that immolated them before their knowledge, and then after their three thousand victims..., which according to some outstanding Hypaspists also rushed them far beyond the Danube where they were engulfed in the confinement of the Getas in thousands, and in greater proportion but with leather rafts, the Hellenic troops crossed this same river and with a few thousand they conquered them filling their saddlebags..., not gold... !, but brandy that burned all the pastures where no Bucephalus crossed by fire.

And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.

What more can they tell you?
I am neither good nor bad but a man,
and they will then associate the danger
of my life, which you know
and which with your passion you shared.

And good, this danger
is danger of love, of complete love
for all life,
for all lives,
and if this love brings us
the death and the prisons,
I am sure that your big eyes,
as when I kiss them,
will then close with pride,
into double pride, love,
with your pride and my pride.

But to my ears they will come before
to wear down the tour
of the sweet and hard love which binds us,
and they will say: “The one
you love,
is not a woman for you,
Why do you love her? I think
you could find one more beautiful,
more serious, more deep,
more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,
and what a head she has,
and look at how she dresses,
and etcetera and etcetera”.

And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up
and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved.

To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where
it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.

You came to my life
with what you were bringing,
made
of light and bread and shadow I expected you,
and Like this I need you,
Like this I love you,
and to those who want to hear tomorrow
that which I will not tell them, let them read it here,
and let them back off today because it is early
for these arguments.

Tomorrow we will only give them
a leaf of the tree of our love, a leaf
which will fall on the earth
like if it had been made by our lips
like a kiss which falls
from our invincible heights
to show the fire and the tenderness
of a true love.

bumper-stickers of crosses
commemorating a Jewish hippie anarchist
are flanked by mantras of violence the hallmarks
of ambivalent compliance celebrating
barbarism the State’s chief contrivance

my fill-in-the-blank is an American serviceman
note here that it doesn’t matter if the individual in
question identifies as male female or non-conforming
they are a service man as if the
erasure of gendered complexities somehow
appeases the intricacies of humanity
beneath a blanket statement of hyper-masculinity but
i digress

my fill-in-the-blank is an American serviceman
reinforcing the spiritualization of militarization
in syncophantic intontations of
god bless our soldiers
and only ours
forget about all the other men and women
and children cursed by the pox of
foreign aggression and endless war
they are not our concern
on the contrary
they are just an obstacle in our path
a minor speed-bump we must summit by summoning
chauvinism and stepping on the throats of our enemies

dominance is our souls’ sole objective
we don’t have time for notions that might
challenge our hallowed perspectives or our
holy war in the most sacred spot in all
the world we cannot be deterred by the images of
broken bloodied babies on Mediterranean shores
‘cause the decimated dead with decapitated heads
only fan the flames of conquest
cultivated by the corrupt

i suppose i shouldn’t be so surprised
after all you did adopt an
instrument of torture to remember your
savior by when a dove of peace and
fraternity would’ve sufficed

your distinctly American Jesus stands shirtless
with a chiseled six-pack in camouflage cargo shorts
wielding a double-barreled sawed-off
shotgun in each hand he’s
white and rich and arrogant
as he trades blows with ISIS and
sits in consternate judgement over godless atheists
barking out damnation from the right-hand of
the lord our god the king of kings
salvation reserved for the predestined elect
necessarily limited to Americans his
chosen elite in their promised land

if only he could see you now
that same martyr you bless with one breath
before spewing vitriolic hatred with the next
what would the prince of peace
riding on a donkey
have to say to
bigots racists and homophobes

would he find the
stones you spew and shove
them back down your throat
the way i’d like to

no i somehow imagine that if your Christ returned
he’d interpose himself between you and the LGBTQ
and suffer the brunt of your bitterness
turning black and blue beneath the blows
willing to die for the least of these crying
abba father
why have you forsaken me

if the Nazarene came back he’d
overturn ballot-boxes in houses of worship
masquerading as venues for the 2016 election
he’d realize Sanders is no socialist
that Clinton is grotesquely hawkish and
i like to think he’d tell that fascist Trump
to *******

he would stand instead with the poor
and oppressed with men and women
of color at Black Lives Matter protests
smoke some quality kush with the dejected rejects
and comfort the back-alley addicts with
a soft word or warm hug to serve
as a reminder that the Kingdom of
Heaven is not above but is
built brick-by-brick in the day-to-day
interactions of compassion between ordinary
humans with an extraordinary capacity to
counteract the lethargy of apathy that
pacifies the populace and turns us into
cowed wage-slaves bowing in acquiescence

the rabbi would march to the gates
of the white house
and occupy the front lawn
to triumphant shouts that
rendered unto American Caesars
precisely what they deserve

a non-violent mass resistance of
leaderless and highly coordinated
civilly disobedient dissidents who
value dissent and populist movements to
voice their disillusionment at abject
apparatuses consolidating dominance
in order to remind the 99% that
in the words of one romantic

we will rise like lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number
we’ll shake our chains to earth like dew
for we are many and they are few

yet as much as i am loathe to admit it
Jesus of Nazareth was executed two
thousand some odd years ago
your god is dead and he cannot save us

if we intend to contend with the forces of
depravity that inculcate humanity with
putrescent fantasies of self-aggrandized zealotry
we cannot sit on our hands or
bury our heads in the sand and
wait for someone else to lead us to redemption

salvation keeps us looking down and shuffling
along suffering chained to our lack of imagination
rather than looking straight ahead
into the eyes of our taskmasters
and irrevocably declaring
we will lead ourselves

we have it in us to build a better world in
the shell of the old and raise a
culture of equality and liberty
provided we don’t buy into
all we’re told but
if such a dream could ever
triumph we must find the courage to
brave the cold winters of repression
that surely lay ahead and pour gasoline
on this ugly specter haunting our planet
before lighting the torch and tossing it
onto the detritus of misanthropy

watch it burn

come
huddle close now
gather ‘round
keep warm
if we stick together
we can brave the storm gathering
even now to purge our
peaceful non-compliance

as we carry the conflagration
to every nation to
each corner of the globe
we will overthrow the
ghost of governance

An Academic (with too much time) deplores our use of him and her.
“These gendered pronouns give offense; to transgenders, they are a slur.”
“So at our University, “Ze” shall stand for “He” or “she”
And when crowds gather now and then, “Zey” shall now be known as “zhem”.”
“Old style pronouns must not be used when the student body is so confused.”
“Gendered bathrooms, were so unkind, now the doors bear equal signs (=)”
We must not judge or interpose when boys dress up in women’s clothes.
Nor should we act with prejudice if Zey decide to make a switch.
For what you may have been at birth may not be what you had in mind;
Hormonal treatments can, in time, make a drab boy look Divine
Though Ze went to an all girl’s school, Zee’s now packing all the tools
With the surgeon’s skill and care you can lose or grow a pair.
“Though Male and Female He created them, surgically we have updated zhem.”

Words do glint in tearful repose
when natural shocks interpose
days weigh heavy as friends show old
and season's winter songs flow cold

These tally chime as death stalks near
long grow visits between grand years
with wrinkled hands and white hair fears
this walking slows, these eyes less clear

Into this night Jack's wind does howl
while inside hearth a live fire growls
and keeps at bay its teeth of frost
thoughts, of endings begin to gnaw

Now sheds this coil that binds its role
and splits heart's wood of nature's whole
console those living, pay this toll
journey's venture awaits its stroll

-cec

If we go on loving through the night and daylight breaks without a sound
could it be that we may have found
the common ground
the meeting place
Do we face the fact that the future is as yet an unwritten tract waiting for the pen to show
just where and how the words of love must go?

It is
of this I'm sure as sure as any man can be with you along as only you,the woman can be
and if we write exotically,erotically as our pens meet upon the pages of our street
who cares
who dares to interpose and who knows the meetings in the minds of meetings behind the curtains,blinds
or dalliances where we dance out the scribbles of romance that shout out within the ink that spills
and thrills
yes, thrills galore
behind the closing of the bedroom door
and when day begins its daily ritual
we'll turn in time and thrill some more.

If it is so
and tomorrow is but another show or spectacle put on the stage
and the writing on the page we make begins to fade
let us lay the new foundation and
forge the new relationship
let slip those tears of yesterday and they will also fade away

Is today the day
Is it time?
okay
let's begin at the beginning and somewhere in between the losing and the winning
when, we both grinning wipe the sweat away
take a break and you say
'that was nice let's do it twice'
and I shake my head somewhere between alive and dead and hold on to the song that plays,
Today's the day.
I wouldn't have it any other way
would you?

Then we must alight before the day breaks into night and with candles lit will sit
upon the bathroom floor
needing to wash but wanting more
desire
desire
fire away
the day was today and today was the day and the night has nowhere to run.

****** with callous authority
****** with casual face
behold guilt and indifference
behold helpless public pleading
cries to mothers past and mothers now
behold public death - oh, watching eyes

behold the citizens’ fear to interpose
behold the helpless sheep, oh lion!
where came such fear?
behold the face of arrogance
behold the face of tyranny
are you safe in your coop, chicken?
where came such power?

Share the barking dogs’ epiphany
wake the half-asleep and world-weary
clutch the scoundrels
Let the pain of others be warning
And the alarm of villains ring like music

I slit apart your soul,
And I ridicule your innards,
I cackle at the thought of such a sad excuse
For this lump of human rind and bone,
You lived a life alone
And so,
Your termination shall be so, as well

I interpose myself between the dirt and your mind,
My jaw unhinges devilishly
My tongue licks you blind,
As it spits putrid words of pity
Dastardly staring darts into your
Witty little demise
That I conjured up myself,
A plan I devised
Your shriek will not salvage what’s left
Stop wriggling,
Your writhing is futile
You’re powerless,
Pathetic mortal *******,
You’re crucified
Why bother try?
Your cries go unnoticed,
Neither dead or alive
No one close by
Your miserable wheezing
As I’m breathing with ease
I’ll mutilate your wants and desires
Set ablaze in a fire
Incinerated with your own choir
Your sad song of solus fate
You’re at stalemate
Your blood will stagnate
Until it’s mucilaginous
Until your own body defeats you,
It chokes you and mistreats you,
And ends you from the inside out
A slow death, undoubtedly
A vile, cataclysmic, unendurable ending
An excruciating decease
But fair,
As you deserve nothing less
Than this wretched release

Troubled/ no or fair/ by the still golden waters cadence or refrain from the inclusion of an individual's own shackles/ which drum a constant clasp of the next intent based on the purity of the assessment/ schink shlank slap/
Cobbled were streets or hobbled we people/ their paths not just warriors but our own war with the weary looks of the discontent of gold without/ a mirror and resolved souls/
And so marks a facet to evoke endless return of magic's need for self preservation and the self that is legends own gold armour/ a victory we together pave/ Golden Stave...
If these are the truths we seek and/ the God or Gods to find answers/ then what anathema awaits or a convocation in place of that?... Of no less is our theory derived thus philosophy and deliverance interpose. Affine the nature of our path with a certain answer .. of only two choices... That which I am and that which I might convert
And we Christen this day with the memorialized self opacity - all persons but one in a mystic realm her story unfolds by the ancient altars bedlam...
What savvy morrows does clemency's graces trounce.. in upon as spiders/ no snakes assumed panderous/ a squander- no lions in a mane/ not lower but higher dragons by bane. Though the fury of deliverance quenching not a birth from dens of evil's title banned by ~gold~ and bones. In insipid shallows.. not a grievance shall I bequeath/ my final breath is upon the restless encounters sought by such velocity/.. of sallow's as any inner self. Such a contrast to presbyter zombies princesses and elves!
Why?!
I was in a dungeon in Hell being tortured by the devil.
Whence forth all stitches of sentient docile was challenging farther than the girth of the Lord's great ship. Reaching souls by way of coast to coast..
Lords and Ladies sorceresses and witches in for the storm of temper and bulwark. Each I speak of naught for turn of fortune is for one to resolve (she touts the Golden Stave). A lament on a basis to which no lives' have dragon for my soul and the gold which I seek not nither or nye but in severed tones to the justice I speak. Hear me this..
And a world/ and a lot of confused self folly. This is not the Lord.. These are not my reflections..
Aluft cloud or mezzanine protections and wrong impressions.
What chain of holy command can virtue make if the gift you hold was never yours to take.
It was not taken foolish old Priest. It was found as if by prophecy that I find the wellness of such pious virtues endured by the plethora's gauntlet for riches in Heavenly retributions, a constant hierarchy contrite yet arbitrary of obfuscation enough for my own liberation.
Your epicurean delight now fiddler to tunes of which the canon shouldn't find disingenuous reprieve to be certain..
But tis mine.. .. Flying monkeys/ fangs and claws. Though driven as prayer invocation the involuntary inveterate invertebrate doesn't stay for boundaries moxie shall soon be broken..
In arbitration the rapid deteriorations invective hastens a new anticipation of vile amelioration for disclaimed lay you/ lugubrious maiden.
Slayer slayer mox of nether! Light nor lotus prayer! Deliverance from which I ran. What soul pientous aster fiends by world and legend n tales run ragged as all else falls by the wayside. To what lays in my pretentious individuals land as my true own disquisition thus began!!